Battery-powered cars not yet practical for mass production

Associated Press File Steve Bernheim shows off his Corbin Sparrow, a single-passenger vehicle he drives in Edmonds, Wash. Myers Motors, a company in Tallmadge, Ohio, bought Corbin out of bankruptcy in 2003, redesigned the internal workings of the Sparrow and renamed it the NmG (no more gas). The Sparrow's range was 25 miles on a charge. Myers has been able to bump that up to 45 miles thanks to more advanced batteries.

Look in any direction at Detroit's North American International Auto Show and you'll see a battery-powered car.

Ford Motor Co. is promising a model by next year. General Motors is showing off its Volt plug-in hybrid. Chrysler has the Dodge Circuit sports car. Startup companies Tesla and Fisker have their luxury vehicles on display. Even Myers Motors, a tiny company in Tallmadge that makes a one-passenger electric car, had vehicles on display.

With all the prototypes and concept cars, not to mention company commercials and claims made to Congress, you'd think that automakers plan to start mass-producing these vehicles soon. But for all the buzz, electrification is years away at best.

"The modern car is so good and so efficient for what we want it to do that it's going to take something monumental to get what we need out of a battery," said David Champion, director of Consumer Reports magazine's car-testing center.

Very few of the show cars will actually be produced. Of the ones that may actually hit the road, sales estimates are low.

AUTO SHOWS

The North American International Auto Show opens to the public on Saturday and runs through Sunday, Jan. 25, at Cobo Hall in Detroit.

Hours are 9 a.m. until 10 p.m. except on the final day, when the show closes at 7 p.m.

Tickets are $12 for adults and $6 for seniors and children between the ages of 7 and 12. Children 6 and younger get in free.

Parking at most surrounding lots is $10 per day.

The Cleveland Auto Show runs Saturday, Feb. 28, through Sunday, March 8, at the International Exposition Center.

Tickets will be $12 for adults, $10 for seniors and children between the ages of 7 and 12. Children 6 and younger get in free.

Parking is free.

At best, the industry could sell about 50,000 all-electric or plug-in hybrid cars. Toyota can sell more Camry sedans than that during one month.

Following the collapse of the auto market during the last months of 2008, even the biggest pessimists expect companies to sell more than 10 million cars in the United States this year. So for the next few years at least, plug-in hybrids and battery-powered cars will make up significantly less than 1 percent of industry sales.

There's an old saying in the auto industry when it comes to developing technologies like the new electric cars: You can get them on the road fast, reliable or cheap. Pick two of the three.

Tesla and Fisker have gotten into the market by choosing fast and reliable. Cheap, not so much. Tesla has sold a handful of its $109,000 Roadster sports cars. Fisker's $88,000 Karma plug-in hybrid should be on sale late this year.

Mike Donoughe, a Fairview Park native and vice president of engineering and manufacturing at Tesla, said early entries into the market will be outrageously expensive for mainstream buyers. But those early products help establish a market.

The Roadster "has the technology that we think will drive down the cost curve," Donoughe said.

Consumer Reports converted one of its test Toyota Prius hybrids into a plug-in last year. The experiment cost $10,000 for a new battery pack and raised overall fuel economy to about 67 miles per gallon from 42. Even at $4 per gallon gasoline, it would take nearly a decade to recoup that battery cost.

David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich., said companies won't be able to commit to making a large volume of electric vehicles until costs come down significantly. That's why Ford's commitment to an all-electric vehicle by next year carries a 10,000-unit sales expectation.

General Motors has been pushing talk of electric vehicles for the past two years with the Volt program, an electric car capable of 40 miles on battery power before a small gasoline engine starts generating power. With the gas engine running, the Volt could have a range of 400 miles or more.

But GM plans to produce only 25,000 of them per year for the first few years.

Champion said it comes down to sacrifice. To drive electric cars today, drivers will have to give up something they get from gasoline-powered cars - long ranges, extra carrying capacity, easy refueling, low prices, power or some combination of those factors.

Dana Myers, owner of Tallmadge's Myers Motors, has been testing the market for people willing to sacrifice space for several years. At about $30,000, his single-passenger nmg (no more gas) has a price tag similar to many large vehicles on the road.

The car has a 45-mile range, putting it within the commuting round trip of most drivers.

Myers said the limited range has been less of an issue than the limited space. His company is working on a two-seat version of the car.

"If you're not in one of these very congested cities, [a single-passenger car] doesn't make a lot of sense," Myers said.

Several auto executives at the show said they expect plug-in hybrids and all-electric vehicles to follow a similar path to traditional hybrids. The first versions of Toyota's Prius and Honda's Insight sold slowly, but interest picked up as the cars improved.

Those sales gains may not continue, however.

Prius sales dropped 13 percent last year and were down more than the rest of the miserable market during the final months of the year. Honda, GM, Ford and Nissan also sell hybrids, but the Honda Civic is a very distant second place, and other automakers' sales are negligible.

Again, the issue is cost. Hybrid car prices won't fall until battery costs do. Researcher Cole said those costs may never fall enough to make hybrids, plug-ins and all-electric vehicles cost-competitive with gas-powered cars.

"I don't think [consumers] will ever buy the batteries," Cole said.

He added that for electric vehicles to be affordable, drivers will probably have to lease their batteries from their power utilities or find some other sort of funding system. And until that kind of arrangement develops, all the talk about an electric future for the auto industry is likely to remain just talk.